Hi! I’m Patricia. In the early ‘90s I became both an elementary school teacher and a mom. In the years that followed, the business world utterly changed education and the internet utterly changed childhood—and kids lost a lot of agency.

In 1996, just as these shifts were taking hold, I made a fairly radical decision as a teacher and a parent: I decided to homeschool with my three now-grown kids. I envisioned this as a grand experiment in progressive education, but one guess at who had the most to learn: me. My kids quickly upended everything I believed about learning, teaching me to trust them and to follow their leads. While I no longer advocate for homeschooling in my work—I’d like public school students to experience the curiosity-led learning often at the heart of homeschooling—I do think the experience gave me an outsider’s perspective on childhood and education. Outsiders often see what others don’t. 

Still, I wasn’t immune to the cultural pressures telling us parents we need to take control, be in charge, prepare kids for their futures. I constantly struggled to hear my intuition as a mother, something I’m writing a lot about in my current manuscript in progress, a mashup of personal stories and cultural history exploring how much independence and creativity kids have lost in the past three decades—and how as a mother I pushed back against that culture while also, unwittingly, letting it shape me.

I’ve written about kids and learning for Salon, Literary Mama, Life Learning Magazine, Mothering Magazine and other venues. For a few fun years I wrote a column for home/school/life magazine and a guide for parents, Workshops Work! A Parent’s Guide to Facilitating Writer’s Workshops for Kids.

My FREE newsletter, Welcome to the Wonder Farm, centers on childhood agency and intuitive parenthood. I’d love for you to subscribe.

Before launching my newsletter, for sixteen years I wrote about child-led learning and helping kids retain their creativity on my blog, Wonder Farm. There are approximately a zillion posts on helping kids love writing, including the still viral-ish How Do Kids REALLY Learn to Write? On the kid-led learning page I share my family’s story and have organized some highlights. Maybe you wanna get lost in the archives?

These days my husband and I are empty-nesting in this house with the long kitchen table that we built 28 years ago, here among the redwoods in Oakland, CA.

Come find me on TikTok and Instagram where I yammer on about changes in childhood and how we parents and teachers can push back. 

And if you’re local to the Bay Area, check out my free monthly morning reading series, Storytime for Caregivers—and bring along the babies!